Comments on: The politics of culturally significant art work http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/07/24/the-politics-of-culturally-significant-art-work/ now with extra source Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:58:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: jessie el-khouri http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/07/24/the-politics-of-culturally-significant-art-work/#comment-17096 jessie el-khouri Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000 #comment-17096 Professor Worthington of QUT School of Economics and Finance studied global art markets and calculated returns in Australian art market based on about 36,000 auction sales. In his study at University of Wollongong he identified Australian Fine Art as a separate Alternative Investment asset class, that produced 30-year average annual returns of 8.23%.<br />AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ART RATE OF RETURN<br /><br />Prior to 1990s Australian aboriginal art was viewed merely as part of tourism only to power charge resale values, like $1.056 million for Emily Kame Kngwarreye's Earth's Creation and $2.4m for Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Warlugulong in recent years. The Warlugulong painting was bought by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in 1977 for $1200. In 1996, Melbourne art dealer Hank Ebes acquired the painting for $36,000 and in 2007 National Gallery of Australia acquired the painting at the Sotheby's auction for a princely sum of $2.4 million. This returned Ebes more than 6,500% on his investment (1996-2007). Never mind, if CBA would have held to their $1,200 investment, it would have returned them 200,000% (1977-2007). Aboriginal art works are called the outstanding paintings of the 20th century and form a $700 million industry. With recent success in Bahrain and Musee du Quai Branly in Paris aboriginal art of Australia is a rather hot investment commodity. <br /><br /><br />As for the Cultural heritage, I suspect oneof the reasons is that it ieasy to classify the aboriginal art as "heritage" instead of trying to impose same on, say, a cartoon by an unknown artists. Other applications include using the art for tax-based planning as we found here:<br /><br />http://www.artbank.ch/giftstax.html Professor Worthington of QUT School of Economics and Finance studied global art markets and calculated returns in Australian art market based on about 36,000 auction sales. In his study at University of Wollongong he identified Australian Fine Art as a separate Alternative Investment asset class, that produced 30-year average annual returns of 8.23%.
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ART RATE OF RETURN

Prior to 1990s Australian aboriginal art was viewed merely as part of tourism only to power charge resale values, like $1.056 million for Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s Earth’s Creation and $2.4m for Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Warlugulong in recent years. The Warlugulong painting was bought by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in 1977 for $1200. In 1996, Melbourne art dealer Hank Ebes acquired the painting for $36,000 and in 2007 National Gallery of Australia acquired the painting at the Sotheby’s auction for a princely sum of $2.4 million. This returned Ebes more than 6,500% on his investment (1996-2007). Never mind, if CBA would have held to their $1,200 investment, it would have returned them 200,000% (1977-2007). Aboriginal art works are called the outstanding paintings of the 20th century and form a $700 million industry. With recent success in Bahrain and Musee du Quai Branly in Paris aboriginal art of Australia is a rather hot investment commodity.

As for the Cultural heritage, I suspect oneof the reasons is that it ieasy to classify the aboriginal art as “heritage” instead of trying to impose same on, say, a cartoon by an unknown artists. Other applications include using the art for tax-based planning as we found here:

http://www.artbank.ch/giftstax.html

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